Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2013-169806 (Claim 1 and FIG. 1) discloses a structure of a vehicle body lower section, which includes left and right side sills extending in a front-rear direction of a vehicle along outer ends in a vehicle width direction of a vehicle body. The structure of the vehicle body lower section includes a dashboard cross member and outriggers. The dashboard cross member, which extends in the vehicle width direction, is connected to a front end of each of the left and right side sills. The outriggers, which extend in the vehicle width direction, are coupled to a rear end of a front side frame and connected to the front end of each of the left and right side sills. A dashboard lower section (dash lower panel), which includes a wheel housing portion (wheel-arch-shaped portion), is sandwiched between and connected to the dashboard cross member and the outriggers. In addition, a gadget, which extends in the vehicle width direction, is disposed on a rear surface of the wheel housing portion. With this configuration, the dashboard lower section moves less toward the rear during application of a narrow offset impact load.
In the above-described known technique, the dashboard cross member reduces deformation of a lower section of the wheel-arch-shaped portion, but the gadget, which is a separate member, is required to be mounted above the dashboard cross member in order to reduce deformation of the overall wheel-arch-shaped portion. This increases the number of components, leading to a complex production process. In addition, the dashboard cross member is required to have a larger thickness to have higher rigidity and strength, leading to an increase in the weight of the dashboard cross member.